Coffee agrosystems: an important refuge for amphibians in central Veracruz, Mexico

Of the most common types of land use, agroecosystems put enormous pressure on many groups of biological organisms. Amphibians are not the exception and here we show the value of these habitats to the conservation of this group. We evaluated the diversity of amphibians in coffee plantations (traditio...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Agroforestry systems 2013-08, Vol.87 (4), p.767-779
Main Authors: Murrieta-Galindo, Rene, González-Romero, Alberto, López-Barrera, Fabiola, Parra-Olea, Gabriela
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural ecosystems
Agriculture
Agronomy
Agronomy. Soil science and plant productions
Amphibians
Biological and medical sciences
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Cloud forests
Coffee
Forestry
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
General agroecology
General agroecology. Agricultural and farming systems. Agricultural development. Rural area planning. Landscaping
General agronomy. Plant production
Generalities. Agricultural and farming systems. Agricultural development
Habitats
Indigenous species
Land use
Life Sciences
Plantations
Reptiles & amphibians
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Of the most common types of land use, agroecosystems put enormous pressure on many groups of biological organisms. Amphibians are not the exception and here we show the value of these habitats to the conservation of this group. We evaluated the diversity of amphibians in coffee plantations (traditional and specialized shade) and also in fragments of cloud forest, the ecosystem that was dominant in pre-agricultural central Veracruz, Mexico. A sampling effort of 2,688 person hours recorded 1,078 amphibians belonging to 26 species, 10 families and three orders. Based on the mean complementarity of 64 %, the non-metric multidimensional scaling analysis identified three groups of communities indicating a high degree of species turnover. The Craugastoridae family was dominant at the study sites, representing 40 % of the entire sample. Amphibian diversity was high in cloud forest fragments, followed by the traditional coffee plantation. However, amphibian richness in the specialized shaded coffee plantation was not significantly different from that of the other two habitats. We conclude that the different types of coffee agrosystems are reservoirs for at least 46 % of the species native to cloud forest, indicating that this habitat is very important to the conservation of the amphibian fauna in central Veracruz.
ISSN:0167-4366
1572-9680
DOI:10.1007/s10457-013-9595-z